My Netflix Got Hacked…

Last night my Netflix got hacked! I couldn’t believe where the hackers were located….

It was weird. A few days ago my Netflix started defaulting to Spanish; I didn’t think much of it and just changed the language for each show I was watching back to English and that was fine. Last night though, I noticed a whole heap of TV shows and movies appearing in my “Continue watching” section. Weird shows that I certainly have never watched…

I had a sinking feeling that my account may have been compromised so I went to the Netflix website on the computer. In there I found the “My account section” and a history of all my logins and usage of Netflix. Sure enough, on the 1st of May there was access from Argentina! Since I can’t recall being in Argentina in the last few days, I was pretty sure someone else has been using my account…

Luckily Netflix has a change password option and an option to force all devices to log out. Password changed (to something much more complex) and all good.

This started getting me thinking though, how did I get hacked in the first place?

I found an excellent website called “Have I been PWNED?” (https://haveibeenpwned.com) and popped my email address in there. It immediately showed that my details had been stolen from 2 websites that had data breaches in the last few years. This prompted me change all my passwords for everything and now I feel much safer. Phew! Disaster averted.

My learnings from this experience were:

Always use complex passwords… Include numbers, letters and symbols to make it hard to guess your password

ALWAYS use different passwords for every website. If one gets stolen they can’t then access your other services

Change passwords regularly. Yes, it’s a pain in the bottom, but so important. Best practice is to monthly go through and change all passwords for all websites and email accounts.

Record your passwords! Write them all down in a document, Outlook contact file, a little black book, inscribed on stone tablets, whatever works for you, as long as they are recorded and easy to access when you need them.

Hopefully my experience helps others.

Let me know if you have had a similar experience and what you did to protect yourself. Also if you would like some help in ensuring that you are protected from those pesky Argentinian Netflix Hackers give me a call anytime.